


Clay Pigeons

by DoubleMastectomy



Series: Plastic Pools [2]
Category: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys: California (Comics)
Genre: (I will also clarify specific content warnings at the beginning of each chapter), (may or may come up but u know), (not central to the plot at all but val is coping), Ableism, Family Reunions, Gen, M/M, Misgendering, Neurodiverse Vinyl, Neurodiversity, Paranoia, Post-Canon, Selectively Mute Vinyl, Sign Language, Trans Character, Trans Val Velocity, Transgender Vinyl, Transphobia, Verbal Abuse, and now for the content warning tags, deadnaming
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-11 09:06:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28468746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoubleMastectomy/pseuds/DoubleMastectomy
Summary: It's been well over than a decade since Vinyl ran away from his childhood home. He's lived the life of a killjoy, helped save the world from BL/i, and most importantly, grown up. But his past comes back to haunt him when a surprise visitor shows up at his front doorstep, and he's forced to reconsider how he feels about everyone he left behind.
Relationships: Val Velocity/Vinyl (Fabulous Killjoys)
Series: Plastic Pools [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2085129
Comments: 18
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a sequel to my Vinyl backstory fic! I've been meaning to write this for a while and finally got around to figuring it all out this week. I'm extremely proud of how it's turning out so far, _especially_ compared to the first fic of this series, so I really hope you'll like it!
> 
> Content warnings for this chapter:  
> -Casual* ableism against neurodiversity  
> -Casual* transphobia  
> -Deadnaming  
> -Misgendering
> 
> (*I say casual because it's non-malicious, but it's still bad!)

“Vinyl?” The call came from down the hall, as unsure as it was loud. “Vi, get out here.”

Vinyl put his journal down on the old wooden nightstand and grabbed a light coat as he exited the bedroom.

“Vi!” Val called again, clearer this time as Vinyl walked down the hall. He knocked on the wallpaper as he went so Val would know where he was in their small house. Vaya and Vamos must’ve come over early. Not unlike them. They were always anxious for the next big event, and since moving to the city no one could blame them. Battery City was living up to its name ever since it evicted Better Living. The twins were the constant moving center of it, and the desert was nothing but sluggish in comparison.

For tonight’s weekly visit, the twins were taking Val and Vinyl out to a drive-in movie. They’d made friends in the city, friends with cars, and bugged the couple for weeks trying to find an excuse to introduce everyone. Vinyl smiled thinking about it. It's be a relaxed night, and good fun, and he missed the twins dearly every moment they were away. But when Vinyl stepped into the sunny living room, it wasn’t the twins he spotted through the linen curtains.

From his side Val asked, “Do you know her?” His voice was armed with an edge of paranoia, his eyes shaded.

Vinyl hummed, striding towards the window. “It’s alright.” He pulled the curtain back a few centimeters from where it rested. He frowned and squinted. “I know her.”

Out front was a vintage car, parked over the deer trail of a walkway that led up to the front steps. A woman paced around their dry yard slowly and arbitrarily, looking lost or looking for something. She was tall with dark hair shaved short around the back, and must’ve been no older than forty. A heavy white jacket covered her shoulders. When the sunlight caught it right, Vinyl could make out a scarecrow label sewn into it. She was tall and muscular and in every way intimidating by the look in her eyes. Then, by her luck, she met Vinyl’s gaze through the dusty window. He tugged the curtain shut.

“Hey w-” Val hurried to keep up with Vinyl's gait as he headed toward the door.

“Wait,” he told Val, holding out his palm. He raised his eyebrows waiting for an answer.

His husband looked between him and the curtain, then shrugged frustrated. “Yeah, sure, whatever.” Val crossed his arms. “Can I watch through the window?”

Vinyl rubbed his neck, taking his time to think, as he opened the door a crack. A column of sunlight fell through. He huffed a breath and waved an indifferent hand, then rushed out.

Quick momentum pushed him through that doorway, but reality halted him on the front step, practically winding him as his eyes adjusted to the bright mid-afternoon air. The door shut behind him.

“Fuck,” the woman stated in a clear city accent, “You’ve changed.” She stepped forward. Vinyl stepped back, his heel hitting the door. His wide eyes scanned her, trying to parse the intentions she hid so well. She smiled, seemingly friendly, but her eyebrows crossed. Nothing but wind passed between them for a moment. Birds sounded above. 

The woman sighed a laugh. “Still not one for talking are you?” She paused, scratching at her lip. “Look I just… Fuck, can’t you at least say ‘hi’ to me?” Her anger rose with her voice. “Can’t you at least say anything?”

“Hey.” Val was behind him suddenly, a hand over Vinyl’s opposite shoulder. “Who the Hell are you?”

Vinyl looked at him, trying not to feel relieved. “I told you to wait,” he whispered just to him.

“Is this tumbleweed giving you trouble?” He scowled. Val turned to the woman again, “What do you want?”

“Hi!” She waved sharply, smiling, “Hi, hi. Finally someone who knows basic manners around here. You know, acknowledging a guest when she comes all the way out here for a visit.”

Vinyl scoffed as she continued.

“My name is Kay. I’ve been asking around quite a bit to figure out where you were out here. Big place, the desert. Lots of empty space. Maybe once things settle down in the city they’ll develop the land out here too, fix it up a bit -”

“What do you want?” Val repeated.

Kay nodded. “Right, my apologies. Just, speaking of the city, I’ve been out of a job since Better Living lost control of it all and with all this free time on my hands - not to mention the new treaties between Bat citizens and, well, people like you - I figured I’d head over here and try to track you down -” she nodded in Vinyl’s direction “- and catch up a bit. Re-introduce ourselves maybe. Get a fresh start.” Her voice softened with the last few words, almost like a plead.

Vinyl's face was red, his jaw tensed, and his arms crossed in a tight knit. If he was trying to hide his discomfort, he wasn’t doing it well. “Kayla,” he addressed her flatly. Then he added, for Val’s sake, “Sister.”

Kay’s eyes went wide. “Oh shit.” She laughed, too loudly. “Well, hang on, hang on. First of all it’s just ‘Kay’ now, got that? No one’s called me by my full name in almost two decades. But also: damn! Look at you talking! A Director’s miracle that is, cause here I was thinking you were just gonna give me a silent treatment all day and let your roommate do the heavy lifting for you.” She cleared her throat. “But, wow, just... your voice. Really, you killjoys do go wild with your hormones don’t you? I didn’t expect you to sound so deep. It’s great through, really great. You got exactly what you wanted in the end. You really do look like a man now, Rebecc -”

Val nearly fell off the porch with how quickly Vinyl shrugged him off, rushing off the stoop to stand nearly chest to chest with her, fists clenched at his sides, as she sputtered in surprise, backing up.

“Hey! Whoa!” She held her hands out as a buffer. “Sorry! I didn’t mean anything by it. There’s no need to get aggressive over nothing. Sorry, alright?”

He didn’t relax, his glare red and wet. He just said frankly, “Vinyl.”

“Vinyl?”

He nodded.

She spoke quietly, still shaken, “Alright. Vinyl.”

He relaxed marginally. 

Val rejoined them, clearing his throat. cautiously he took Vinyl’s hand in his own and Vinyl let him. “You alright?” he asked, concerned. 

Vinyl just stared at the middle distance of the ground, breathing heavy. He rammed his eyes shut, trying to reset things, reground. He nodded.

Val’s voice was a soft relief at least. “Let me know if I should do something.” 

“Sorry,” Kay mumbled again, watching this exchange. But her voice wasn’t apologetic, it was awkward and uncomfortable, like she was just begging for this to be over with so she could move on with whatever she planned to do here. Val tightened his grip on Vinyl’s hand.

 _Don’t_ , Vinyl tried to warn but anxiety held his body stiff.

“‘Sorry?’ No,” Val moved toward Kay, shoulders squared. “You don’t get to show up uninvited, talking about fresh starts like some crash queen’s final letter making a complete fool of yourself in the process, and then just say _sorry_ about it like you’ve only made some honest mistake.”

“It _was_ an honest mistake. How was I supposed to know they fucking changed their name?”

“You were supposed to know _he_ changed _his_ name the moment your thick skull figured out you don’t know shit about who he is anymore. Cut the crap, sweetheart, this isn’t a family reunion.”

Vinyl tugged Val’s arm. _Don’t._

“Fine.” He leaned on Vinyl, fuming. “Fine. But take that rusty jacket off while you’re here, Kay. I don’t give a shit about your sympathies.”

Vinyl opened his eyes again just in time to see Kay not taking off her jacket.

"I'm not a sympathizer." She sounded offended. "Better Living isn't around anymore -"

“Not a sympathizer and yet you brandish that logo like you’ve been sponsored to sell it.”

Reluctantly she took off the jacket and tied it around her waist. “So much for SoCal hospitality. Maybe you’re right and we aren’t really related after all, if Vinyl’s going to socialize with stubborn testy bastards like you. I don't work for Better Living anymore. They’re gone. I couldn’t if I wanted to. So let bygones be bygones, water over the street, why don’t you? But yeah, sure, I was a scarecrow for a while. Who cares? Would've been a full fledged exterminator by now just like Dad if only the corporation stuck around a few more months."

Vinyl shook his head, looking away. “D - Dad… -”

“What?” She was mocking him, he could tell. “Did you not know? Ran away from home too young?”

“N - no. I -” He knew. He’d always guessed so, or guessed similar. But that didn’t make it easier to hear point blank. “Sorry.” He held Val's hand tighter.

She sighed. “It’s okay. I didn’t mean - I didn’t come here to start fights.”

Vinyl pulled away from Val and went back over to the front stoop, sitting down on it, his head in his hands. Everything was too loud and too fast. He needed a break. He needed things to pause.

“I thought you were dead,” Kay said without moving from where she stood. She was grim but not accusatory. Just stating facts. “I thought you’d gotten yourself ghosted with that dustbunny you ran off with. And you must’ve, I thought, because being a killjoy is just suicide by roleplay. Everyone knows that. Or everyone _did_ know that until I spotted you in the City. I saw you in that stupid parade you killjoys had going. Right at the front. I couldn’t believe it. I’m amazed I even recognized you, but I did and I - I -” She rubbed her face. “I fucking cried you bastard. You were back from the dead. Then that bomb went off and my job was gone, like that. The bomb went off and all the electricity went crazy, glass breaking, transformers busting. Everyone in the office with me screaming. And you were gone. And I was stranded in a burning, infested city, watching the life I’d put my everything into just vanish with the smoke. And I was lost.”

Vinyl didn’t say anything. He just sat there processing it. Val sat beside him and stayed silent as well, respecting Vinyl’s right to speak for himself. But Vinyl didn’t want to speak for himself, not now, not like this. Kay was watching him, waiting.

“Whatever happened to them, by the way?” Kay asked, too impatient to let the silence rest. “The killjoy who talked you into leaving us.”

Vinyl tensed.

“Volume’s dead,” Val said plainly.

“Oh.”

Silence held this time. Val bit his tongue, keeping an eye on Kay's every move. She, in turn, contemplated Vinyl who was still sitting there fighting off overload. The wind between the trio was cold.

Then another car pulled up beside Kay's, horn honking. Vinyl startled, having not realized anyone was driving up until now. It was a white city car with tinted windows, but spray painted all over in a multitude of colors, and it was a welcome escape.

"The clowns are here." Val leapt up and shouted to them, "Vaya! Vamos!" 

“Hey!” Vamos rolled down the shotgun window and called out, “Who’s the undergrad?”

Val groaned. “I’ll explain later, dipshit! Are we rolling out or what?”

Vinyl tugged Val’s sleeve as he stood, and with Val’s attention, he signed, “Tell Kay to come back in a week. We need to talk.”

Val paused. "Sure?"

"Yes."

Val repeated the request to Kay, trying not to sound unfriendly as he did so.

“You're kidding. You're really leaving right now?”

Val laughed. “Duh. Don’t want to hold up the party.” He pulled a key from his pocket and locked the front door shut twice. “And don’t come back until next week," He told Kay, kicking the bottom of the door. "If I see you any sooner than that you’ll be nothing but a trespasser to me. Understand?”

Vaya honked their horn again. "Let's _go_."

"One second! Fuck, Vaya." Val held Vinyl's hand again and the two headed for the car.

Kay just stood there awkwardly, trying to parse the sudden departure. “Oh - okay. Bye, I guess.”

Once in the backseat of the carpool, Vinyl watched through the window as Kay got into her own car and pulled out an old paper map, crinkled and marked up. The killjoys' car hummed. As Vaya began to red line away, Kay and her scarecrow license plate, still set in park, shrunk over the horizon.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No major content warnings for this chapter!

They got back to their house well into night. Val checked each room twice before getting around for bed, making sure Kay hadn’t broken in and touched anything, or done anything worse, while their home was left unsupervised.

“She wo - wouldn’t have.”

“I know.” Val opened and closed the closet door, again. “You keep saying that.”

Vinyl nodded. Val’s fears would pacify sooner rather than later. Besides, he lay on their bed with his own thoughts that night, staring up at the ceiling, counting the cracks. The room, along with the whole house, was quiet and dim. Quietly falling apart, too. In his head Vinyl was always planning home improvement projects around the real estate, which he swore he'd get around to eventually. Floors needed to be redone. Furniture needed to be mended. An apocalypse and a war hadn't been kind to the structure over the years. And last May, a family of crows had nested in the defunct chimney. It was sealed off from the rest of the building, so there was no threat of infestation or whatever complications that would bring, but if Vinyl could figure out what kind of mess they'd left in there and clean it up, he'd rather do that before it started attracting worse pests.

“You shouldn’t have invited her back,” Val said while opening each drawer of their dresser, again. Vinyl looked over at him. What did he expect him to say in response to that? Still, Kay's visit obviously triggered something in Val, and for that he at least sympathized.

He cleared his throat to get Val's attention, signing, “Why?”

“Because she’s a bootlicker, Vi." He was exasperated like it was obvious, and perhaps it was. "Not to forget, I’ve _heard_ you talk about her. She was no better than your parents were.”

So that was the problem? “Kay was a child.”

“And she hasn't changed.” Val stood up straight, brushing the hair out of his face. “Alright. The house is shiny… enough. I’ll just check again in the morning, you know.” His words had an aftertaste of bitter guilt-trip to them. He bit his lip realizing that. "Thank you. For letting me check."

Vinyl smiled reassuringly. He pulled back the sheets and comforter so Val could get under them too, an offer he quickly accepted, pulling close to Vinyl and sinking into the cushions comfortably. The bed was nicer than most. Tommy'd gotten his pinchers on some backlog from the city recently; old furniture sets and decor for cheap, which he'd then sold to sand dwellers for twice the original value. Val splurged on the mattress. But then again, with carbons to spare, there was no reason not to. Vinyl wrapped the blankets around them both, warm and downy.

“I don’t trust this,” Val sighed. “I trust you.”

Vinyl signed carefully, thinking his defensiveness over. “She’s family. I left her. I need to hear what she has to say.” He raised his eyebrows. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

He kissed the top of Val’s head. Then he added, hardly thinking, “Your and her personalities are the same.”

“How so? Don’t offend me.” He pulled Vinyl's arm around his shoulder, leaving the other free to talk.

Vinyl shrugged and mirrored Val's smirk. “Quick to anger. Not a bad thing.” He watched Val for a moment before reconsidering. “Next time don’t.”

“Don’t get angry?" he quipped with calm sarcasm, "I’ll keep that in mind.” A beat passed. Val signed a half-promise, "I'll be nice," before talking again: “What’s the… - I know I shouldn’t be asking this. I know that, and I’m trying not to be so… -”

“- Quick to anger?”

Val laughed. “Alright, that. Or quick to judge. That’s what I was going to say: I’m too quick to judge too. Jesus. I’m working on it, add that to the list of - shit, I -” He rubbed his face. “That… wasn’t where I meant to go with this. I just want to know what the point of today was. What do you hope to gain from letting your sister back into your life? After how she treated you? Why would you want to bring any of that back? It’s history. There’s nothing to find there, just ghosts. You don’t see me crawling back to _my_ old family skeletons, begging for forgiveness - not that that’s what I think you’re doing."

"Sure."

"Sure. Right. But what’s the end goal here? What boon’s gonna neutralize the risk you’re putting yourself in?”

“Curiosity,” was his gut reaction, signing before Val was finished talking. “Love. I don’t know.”

“You don’t have to know. I put you on the spot.”

Val pushed the covers away and got up again. He opened the bedroom door and peered out into the hallway. It was hardly five seconds before he closed the door again and re-locked it.

“Okay?”

“It’s nothing, Vi. I know it’s nothing.” He started crawling back into bed.

“You’re safe.”

“I _know_. I told you it’s nothing.”

Vinyl fixed Val’s hair behind his ear. Val was quiet, for once. He breathed softly, looking down, lost in his own head. Finally he said, “We should sleep. If we sleep I might stop thinking about it.”

“Good." Vinyl hoped so too. "I love you.”

“I love you," Val repeated, laying down against Vinyl's side. Vinyl could barely reach the bedside lamp from where he was, but he could, and he turned it off then, blanketing the room in darkness. Then he held his husband close as he drifted off to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warnings for this chapter:
> 
> -verbal abuse  
> -ableism against neurodiversity (mostly kept vague, but it goes hand in hand with the above bullet point)
> 
> this is probably the most blunt chapter of this fic with reference to these kinds of things, so if you'd like to avoid that content skip the second section of this chapter (between the first and second section breaks) and you'll be fine.

It wasn’t so much a dream as it was a series of memories, broiled together under white-hot sunlight through the glass of the greenhouse roof. The sun, always a star in its own right, burned him. Black plastic hoses threaded along table edges misted soil and leaves in rows where he sat, in the corner, letting the irrigation soak his shirt through until he was pulled to his feet, almost roughly, by Kayla.

“Get up. Dad wants this done by tonight.” She shoved shears into his hands and dragged him away from the shade.

“It’s too bright in here,” he said.

“Suck it up,” she replied.

* * *

“Suck it up,” he heard again, from his father or mother or who knows. He couldn't remember. The dream was too aerosol. But the voice sounded again out of nothing:

“No one will ever want to tolerate you if you keep acting like this.”

It was dark, the sun gone and replaced by dim orange light and shadows projected over peeling wallpaper. Shadows instead of figures, only a reflection of what was there. Elongated and distorted. The air burned.

He was still being dragged somewhere, by someone, by his arm, falling deeper and deeper into the cavernous space. Endlessly, it was his universe. The house was too tall around him. The angles too sharp. The touch binding his wrist was as disorienting as it was painful as it was like brushing a heat lamp with tender skin, but he knew pulling away would only make things worse, so it was all he could do to choke out an “I’m sorry” under his breath.

The walls themselves ached with each breath and pulse. “They’d never let you act like that in the city.”

He knew that.

“You’re lucky.”

The house around him creaked like a bird.

“Be thankful.”

Anger burned in his chest like acid.

“We’re only strict because we love you.”

He knew that too. Clutter in every corner of the room crowded him; photo albums, old picture frames, and books. Memories dotted each object with shallow love.

“No one else will ever care for you this much.”

He wiped his eyes with his sleeve, collecting the salt like stars. “W - what did I - ?”

What did he do wrong this time. What did he did he fuck up. What did he do to deserve it? Did it matter?

Every day was the same scorn with new reason. He needed to be better, that’s all, what an impossible feat. He strained his eyes in search of a way out but the night was too dark, no stars left at all. Just black empty space going out forever.

And then there was Kayla.

There was no light. All he could see was in tones of grey. But there ahead of him was her outline, rim-lit and soft by the static in the air, just barely visible. She watched him with disgustingly sad eyes he couldn’t meet. Then her pity melted into a smile, a grimace, anxiety. He knew she didn't hate him, only because she hated their parents more.

* * *

Like lightning there was a flash, and ahead of him: a dead scarecrow disturbing soft earth, its head bouncing when it hit the ground. The air was still dark, too dark. The sky above like a black dome, and the desert a muddy disc. Vinyl crawled forward to pull off the scarecrow’s bloody mask.

Dark hair fell out of it, inky curls like his, but the face, corpse white, was too thin and unfamiliar and free of tattletale birthmarks or freckles or scars. It was cold.

From behind him, Val asked, “What’s the point of looking at them all? They’re just clay pigeons like this. Nothing left to look at.” He laughed.

Was this what Icarus’ freedom felt like? Vinyl dropped the scarecrow’s head and stood up, looking down. It was just a nameless corpse no older than him. A clay pigeon, truly. One of hundreds. He’ll tie it up like all the rest, then they’ll gore it for fun, and he’ll try not to imagine who it could’ve been.

* * *

He caught his reflection in polished silver. Everything was soft and bright and suddenly there he was in the center of it all. Inky hair. When he pulled it all back, he could see where it was receding in the corners of his forehead, slowly, slowly, but easily he could imagine it even further back, leaving more skin exposed. Any further and it’d look something like Dad’s. Let it recede too much and it’d be the same.

His father’s hair, his mother’s nose, his sister’s jaw. Broken pieces jammed together. He never knew before what people meant by things like that - comparing a person's pieces to their parents' - but as he got older he found he understood it more and more until it was all he could see in silver.

Genetics was his cruel reminder.

* * *

He woke up angry at nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! if you enjoyed this, kudos/comments are appreciated as always! and you can reach out to me @theultravs on tumblr if you'd like


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